Talk:How to Run Away with Chauffeurs/@comment-3041875-20161119223802
Guys, I know you sold this episode as being one of your best, but I mostly thought it was just above average, until the end. Three excellent things happened in the final act, involving a butler being framed for a murder, a latest addition to a basement of imprisoned women and a butler replacement, which were all amazing scenes, and certainly increases the episode's ranking a lot, but I had some issues with the episode before then. Josh - Joanna just begins hacking her husband into pieces within the kitchen? Honestly, the blood splatter from that would be impossible to completely clean away. She should have taken him somewhere else or laid down some plastic sheets or something… Nevertheless, the teaser was very good. I enjoyed the flashes, but it seems like something that would have been more fitting to see when Matthew was still alive. I like how Josh was brought to light as a suspect for Matthew's death or disappearance, which was kind of to be expected, but I wasn’t sure if it would happen so soon or be more of a plot nearer the finale (kind of like in DS with Josh and Rudolfo). I did not at all, however, expect Joanna to be so willing to frame Josh for the murder (I suppose it doesn’t matter if she left blood traces everywhere, after all), which makes things much more interesting and presents Joanna in an increasingly darker light. Brad is pretty bland, but I like how he's come into two stories, and honestly, it's probably for the best that he isn't too colourful, considering how many characters in the series we have already fitting that criteria, sometimes risking being a little OTT. I do like, however, Brad's obvious drive for justice, and immediate passion for Josh's case. Josh continues to have the spotlight of his own story stolen by other characters (this episode, Joanna), and I still really can’t connect with him much. Ben - Ben didn’t even buy Jennifer a decent ring, but that would mean more if we knew more about what he did back in Scotland and what his situation was like back there. I wish Ben wouldn’t be so spineless. At least, it's quite comical; he doesn’t finally gather the strength to say something to Justine until she's left the house, for example. It was quite amusing seeing Ali find out he's married and agree to let her stay, then it was bizarre to see Joey be fine with it and straight after turn down sex from his wife in order to fry bigger fish. Honestly, that scene just went from bizarre, to really bizarre, to, "WTF's happening?", but in quite an amusing way. Honestly, I'm a bit disappointed in Jennifer's character. She just seems completely psycho, with there not being much else to her. Did she really think it was a good idea to just find Ben, move in with him and force on him a relationship, and that they could then be happy? I had hoped when she tracked him down that she had something a bit cleverer and interesting planned. I'll admit, "I was hoping we could spend the day together," followed by, "And I was hoping you could pack up your crap and leave," was pretty funny, but ultimately, I'm just waiting for this bump in the road to pass, so we can resume Ben and Justine, because that's all I see Jennifer being. Honestly, I had already assumed that the baby passed away and that's what drove Jennifer to insanity. But, nevertheless, hearing Ben tell the story to Justine was very touching, and made him appear much more sympathetic than he had been the rest of the episode. It was also nice to see an actual human element to Justine, in her supporting her boyfriend and feeling his pain. The background, does also give me some more appreciation of Jennifer as a character. Justine rescuing Ben was pretty badass of her, and I liked the fight (though it's a little harsh for a woman who lost her mind over losing a child); Jennifer finally used some decent Scottish slang, too, with "lass". Okay. Holy crap. I wasn’t expecting the end, with Joey taking Jennifer as the latest prisoner in his dungeon (loved the Taken reference, by the way). Holy crap. And poor Jennifer, actually. I love that tie-in, and I'm curious as to how this will play out; it's pretty good that we'll actually know one of the women in the basement when they're eventually, assumably, freed. Very, very good ending to this story. Of course, we still have a lot to learn about Joey, and I really hope we don’t need to wait for the mysteries to be revealed at the end of the season before we can connected with him as a character, but I do find him and Ali still the most intriguing characters of the show (with the possible exception now only of Joanna); Ali, however, hasn’t really had a stand-out scene since her conversation with Ben a few episodes ago, so she's definitely in need of having some focus, but I do continue to like the subtle revelations about her character, such as crying while doing so, but holding the door for Matthew to take Jennifer to the basement. Joe - As usual, I like Joe subtly trying to pry information from the other butlers, while they mistake him as being friendly. Also, if Josh's line about cutting people up was foreshadowing over him being accused for Matthew's death, then I like it. Their reactions to watching Liz's tape were pretty funny, with Joe escaping with the evidence, and an amusing brief look at Justine's depressive state. Joe actually believing the illegally-obtained "evidence" would be enough to re-open the case, with Liz being the main alternative suspect, was a little too naive and foolish for my liking, but I enjoyed the conversation with Brad enough. 'Work' is loose term!" – I love how Justine gets so many great lines, not just within Ben's stories, but at the expense of Rena, or in this case, Joe, too. While I forgive Joe for being so eager that he thought his "evidence" would be enough to exonerate Tyson, he was a bit too stupid in his confrontation with Liz, just having the tapes he valued so much there for her to destroy, and without a backup. I also don’t really understand where he expected that conversation to lead, and find it a bit too risky that he showed some interest in Jose's case to Liz. The flashback was interesting, with ash on Liz's shoe, and I hope this will lead to Joe inspecting more closely the largest and darkest mystery we have so far, and which has been right under his nose, within the basement of his employers. But the flashback kind of raised more questions than it answered, such as how exactly did Liz know that Jose had the films in the first place if they were secret? Also, it's a bit odd that she would sneak away from Jose's death to sneak into his bedroom, unless she's the killer, since it implies she was unaffected by his murder. And this means that Liz has ignored what she heard in the basement, even socialising fine with Ali. Joe was definitely fired far too abruptly, and quite randomly; that definitely should have had more focus, but luckily it was saved by tying-in to Josh's story, and a really great ending. Rena - I'm a bit confused over why Rena was so compliant in Liz leading him to the cage etc., after he had previously been resistant over that relationship going any further, and I thought we had kind of moved past it (after what was already a bit of a drag). Nevertheless, Liz basically torturing him for information over the tapes was quite fun and tied two seasonal stories together. I still find Liz to be, possibly, the messiest character in the series. She appeared relatively nice to Rena in the pilot, has given him acting advice, and even went out of her way to help him out of his situation with his agent (although perhaps you could explain that as Liz getting her own back for her own personal reasons?), so the revelation that Liz has such a satisfaction from inflicting pain, even on an animal, is a bit out of nowhere, but I'm willing to go with it, as it could be interesting, and while Rena's torture was too extreme (I can’t buy that he'd continue to work for her after this), it was quite entertaining. Okay, in the end, he realises that he also likes pain, which I guess removes my issue from the previous scene; interesting development, I suppose, we'll see where it goes. Best Butler – While Rena easily takes home the wooden spoon this episode (last place), the other three butlers are all pretty tied. Ben's story definitely revealed the most about his character and was the easiest butler of the episode to engage with, but his story, right until the last couple of scenes, mostly just came across as a minor handedness to his relationship with Justine and not all that important. Josh's story was probably the most interesting, but mostly because of Joanna, and not him, as it doesn’t really feel as though he did that much. Then, Joe, was a bit too dumb at times for his character, but had a pretty solid story throughout, and that actually focused on him. I'll give Joe the edge on this one (mostly because he hasn’t been the best butler yet). Overall - In the end, I actually really liked this episode, and want to make it my favourite so far, but it's mostly just because of the endings of the stories, which were amazing. Joe and Josh's stories were strong throughout (even if the latter didn’t focus on its main character enough), but Rena's was a little unneeded and I have mixed feelings on Ben's. I really enjoyed Justine's character, not just because she was funny as always, but because she actually came across more human, and I'm glad that this hasn’t halted their relationship progress for several episodes, but that they're back together in the end, and I really liked hearing Ben's backstory, but ultimately, I was a little disappointed because I hoped the return of Ben's wife would be a bigger deal, and not that she'd just be an annoying psycho, and not much else, within an episodic story, but the ending of the story kind of saved it. Good episode, really guys, and I'm much more interested in the mystery than I've ever been so far, which is great.